This project will analyse the way individuals express criticism of law, democracy and cultural diversity on social media, and deploys a hybrid methodology designed to maximise the cross-disciplinary involvement.
The 4-step process draws upon the expertise of each CI:
(i) data collection (Dr Abbas);
(ii) Rhetorical and critical legal discourse analysis (A/Prof Sharp);
(iii) critical discourse and linguistic analysis (Dr Dreyfus); and
(iv) cognitive psychological analysis (Drs Leeson & Woolrych).
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts
Cassandra Sharp – Associate Professor, Law
Cassandra is the Lead CI for the project. Having previously conducted several empirical research projects across the intersecting areas of law, public consciousness and narrative, she will lead the cultural legal analysis of the data.
Dr Shoshana Dreyfus – Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry
Shoshana is involved in applications of linguistic theory to a wide range of objects of study including language and power, evaluative language, and media discourse. Shoshana brings to the project her experience in identifying power and discourse in language, analysing social media data.
Shoshana leads the linguistic analysis of the data.
Kate Tubridy and Yvonne Apolo – Lecturers and PhD candidates, Law
Kate and Yvonne (both supervised by A/Prof Sharp) are undertaking their PhDs in relation to contemporary issues surrounding media engagement (Yvonne on the psychology of privacy in the contemporary world, and Kate on Facebook responses to signal crimes).
Kate and Yvonne are assisting with the graduate seminar within the workshop.
Faculty of Business
Dr Roba Abbas – School of Management, Operations and Marketing
Roba is a multidisciplinary, early career researcher who is interested in the adoption and application of socio-technical systems theories to investigate the impact of emerging technologies on individuals, organisations and society.
Roba provides guidance around the generation, collection and collation of social media data.
Faculty of Social Sciences
Dr Tracey Woolrych and Dr Peter Leeson – School of Psychology
Tracey is an early career academic with research interests in empathy, social cognition, and a background in criminological study including fear of crime.
Peter is a social psychologist with interests in social and cognitive responses within social media.
They are providing psychological coding parameters for the analysis, and an added layer of psychological analysis to the complexities of the analysis of public communication of hate speech and government critique.
Hashtagging Terror and Hate: Citizen Responses on Social Media 